


you say “go slow”, and i fall behind.

by slowlimbs



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: College AU, Dark Richie Tozier, Drug Use, Everybody Lives, Jealousy, Kinda, Multi, Pining, Poetry, Rocker Richie, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, VERY VERY VERY slow burn, alcohol use, and beyond!, band au, bar au, barman richie, he doesn't always think the best things, tagged as updated, very slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:35:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27124603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slowlimbs/pseuds/slowlimbs
Summary: When they think about their lives together they see the tangled thread that has been there since birth. They see the way Beverly is mirrored in the blood in Ben’s cheeks (and seriously, the dude has lost like a hundred pounds, all of them can admit that he is probably the most attractive of them these days), the way that Stan and Eddie flinch in synch to Richie’s idea of what is an acceptable state to leave the dishes in, the way that Bill’s stutter is basically nonexistent when they speak to him one on one.In which the Losers live their lives as they should have, if they’d killed Pennywise the first time around.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak & Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak & Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Original Male Character(s), Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris
Comments: 47
Kudos: 38





	1. nobody, not even the rain

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t written fanfiction in... 10? Years? And this is mainly unbeta’d so I’m really sorry if it’s actually not very good. I hope y’all enjoy it, I enjoyed writing it!

They all end up going to the same college. It’s something everyone is glad of - the months of comparing notes, schedules, saving up from their various part time jobs (a jar tucked away in one corner of the clubhouse becomes a crate with rows and rows of containers), convincing the more… difficult parental sets; it all pays off in the end. The Losers of Derry become the Nameless of Portland, the memories of their childhood fuzzy and distant already, surfacing only when faced with a resemblance of—. Of It. A clown on a poster, any balloons, and Stan generally avoids anywhere selling paintings for a good year of their higher education. Some things can’t be helped. Beverly just counts herself lucky that her periods are light in both flow and colour, and are therefore not too reminiscent of the mess which had been her bathroom. The mess her father couldn’t see. Richie still feels a vague pang of nervousness around statues, and it takes a while for Ben to be okay joining them in the library (and even then, only because Bill had finally told him he wouldn’t be getting the books that he needed anymore, because “come on man, we’re a million miles from Derry”), while Mike’s dislike of birds is only calmed when Stan takes him to feed the pigeons in the park. He doesn’t quite fall in love with the feathery little assholes, but when a sparrow lands on his fingers to peck at breadcrumbs, he does feel a little softer towards them. Eddie, strangest of all, simply refuses to acknowledge when he’s sick. It’s weird to the rest of them - especially Ben and Richie, who both quite like that their friends will make a fuss of them and fetch them soup and orange juice. For Eddie, being sick is no longer a part of his life. As far as he’s concerned, he spent too long thinking he was on the brink of some terminal diagnosis, and now colds are simply a nuisance.

They drift apart, just a little, when Ben starts going to the gym and gains an air of self confidence none of them expected from them. Richie remains able to direct zingers at him, long fingers poking in at where puppy fat used to be and endlessly asking if he’s cold. He must be. Have you ever seen a thin polar bear? No? That’s because they need the flab to keep warm, Haystack, let me get you a jumper.

For his credit, Ben takes this as he has done all of Richie’s teasing. With a smile and a blush and eyes pointedly skittering away to look at Beverly. Beverly who still smokes like a chimney and swears like a sailor and gives it out as well as any of the boys and yet, is still a delicate girl. Tomboyish and tough, tongue whip smart and eyes sharp and intelligent, bony knuckles connecting with the meat of Bill’s bicep if he even dares to suggest that there’s something she can’t keep up with. The real surprise, as always (they all feel), is Eddie. Eddie who one night outside of their shared rented house (it had been falling down around them when they’d moved in, but Ben ever clever with his hands had fixed what he could; Beverly had helped, and Stan and Mike had painted birds on their living room ceiling so now it’s  _ home _ ) snakes a cigarette out of Bev’s packet and lights it. Leans back against the porch and exhales a long line of smoke.

Richie is hit, not for the first time, by how fucking beautiful he is. All those bones under skin arranged to make this perfect boy in front of him. The boy he’s been in love with since he could put words to his feelings (feelings he covers up with other words, with occasional cruelty, with motherfuckers and bastards and pricks) is standing beside him so closely he can feel the heat of his body through his trendy slacks and Richie’s trendier jeans, head tilted back, the line of his jaw illuminated by the light inside the front door. 

“You okay, Eds?” It’s Mike who speaks first, sat cross legged in the grass of the front yard, stringing daisies together despite their buds being closed for the night. “You don’t smoke.”

“Fuck, kid, that shit’ll kill ya.” Richie is grateful for the space left for him to perform. It’s bordering on a Voice, nasal and a little Groucho Marx, and he reaches up to pluck the cigarette from Eddie’s fingers to drag and make a meal out of his fake coughing. It draws a laugh from everyone but Eddie, and he doesn’t even bother to rise to it, so it wasn’t worth it. Richie hands it back and stays quiet while Eds smokes it down to the filter and flicks it over the fence.

“My mom called.” Really, that’s all he needs to say in explanation. Beverly makes a sympathetic noise in the back of her throat and pulls away from Ben (the two of them have been the Earth and the Moon recently; dancing around each other like they think the other doesn’t feel what they do) to wrap her arms around Eddie’s middle from behind.

“Wh-what’d she want?” Bills stutter is getting better. Slowly. He’ll get there.

“Our address, whether I’ve been eating right, that I’m not falling into the collegiate trap of sorority girls and cheap booze and drugs, if I have enough warm sweaters, if I’ve refilled my script, am I absolutely  _ sure _ I wouldn’t just rather come home and commute—.”

“Sounds like Sonia needs a little distraction.” Richie waggles his eyebrows suggestively, but his heart is going a million miles an hour in his chest. If Eddie goes home, he’ll go too. “Maybe a dirty weekend with the Love Machine is in order, she must be missing me - that’s the real reason she called, Eds, she misses this great big c—.”

“Beep beep, Trashmouth, you motherfucker.” But Eddie is smiling, and the tips of his ears are pink, so this one was worth it. Richie gives him his sweetest grin.

“Yeah. That was my point.”

“Get fucked, prick.”

“I’m  _ trying,  _ Eddie my love, but you’re not being very accepting of mine and your ma’s great love affair.” Still with that shit-eating grin, eyebrows raising, because the wrinkle between Eddie’s eyebrows is winding tighter and tighter and Richie has always thought of this as a glorious, and his very favourite, game. It takes Stan reaching across and swiping him around his ear to make him stop, shaking his head like he’s trying to shoo away a bee. 

“When I asked if we’d stay friends as grown-ups, I don’t think I was thinking about how fucking infuriating you are, Rich.” But there’s the ghost of a smile around Stan’s mouth as he speaks, so Richie takes that for a win as well. 

“Hey, every group needs a leader,” he points to Bill, “a chick,” Beverly, “a bruiser,” Ben, who blushes and looks away, “a second in command,” Mike doesn’t look up from where he’s placing his daisy chain on Stan’s head, “an anxious mess of a person scooped into a skin suit,” Stan doesn’t look up either, but fingers the flowers in his hair and smiles, “and a hero.” He puffs his chest out and looks to one side, looking very much (in his imagination) like Superman sans cape.

“What about Eddie?” Beverly is laughing, all fire and freckles and dimples, smoke weaving it’s way around her from her third cigarette of the conversation. Richie considers this. Looks up at Eddie, a little sly, a little pleased with himself.

“I guess we have two chicks.”

“Oh, fuck  _ you. _ ” And then Eddie is clattering up the porch steps, shoving Richie’s head forward as he goes. “I’m going to bed. You’re all fuckers.”

“I’ll wake you for our 9am!” Stan calls after him, hands cupped to amplify his voice.

“Make sure there’s coffee!” Eddie yells back, and then there’s the hiss of the shower and the click of the bathroom door being locked. Richie is just content to lean back against the steps, bony back uncomfortable on the wood, close his eyes and breathe while he listens to the faraway sound of Eddie singing something. Frank Sinatra. This is what home is supposed to be.

***

When they think about their lives together they see the tangled thread that has been there since birth. They see the way Beverly is mirrored in the blood in Ben’s cheeks (and seriously, the dude has lost like a hundred pounds, all of them can admit that he is probably the most attractive of them these days), the way that Stan and Eddie flinch in synch to Richie’s idea of what is an acceptable state to leave the dishes in, the way that Bill’s stutter is basically nonexistent when they speak to him one on one. Sure, it still makes itself known when they’re together as a group, but the reasoning is that often they’re so loud all together that he struggles to be heard. Mike watches all of this with steady, loving eyes. Because he loves all of them so desperately it burns like the fire he only has vague memories of. He does not see his own mirroring, his own reactions, the way his very nature goes silky soft when Stan leans over him to show him his birdwatching book because he saw a cardinal (and round here they’re so rare they may as well be extinct). What he sees instead is Richie. And Eddie. And Beverly and Bill, and then Beverly and Ben. He watches for endless days and nights while his friends fall in and out and in love all over again. He knows the clip in Eddie’s voice when Richie has hit close to something real in him, knows the way that Bev’s face flushes just over her nose when one of the boys she loves does something so sweet she feels like she’ll get cavities. He doesn’t notice Stan sitting closer, fetching his morning tea, making sure his pillowcases aren’t washed with Richie’s underpants and socks (they all know what he does to those socks. Eddie makes him wash them on their own). In the same vein Beverly doesn’t notice when Ben has tracked her cycle down to the day, and therefore he comes home from classes to quietly restock her tampons and make sure that there’s mint chip ice cream in the freezer and painkillers in the medicine cabinet (another thing Eddie insisted on; Bev’s stuff comes out of household cash, so she never feels like she owes anyone anything. Bill often thinks about the way Eddie looks after them. Like a father. Like the father Eddie never really knew). They have their separate lives, of course. None of them can watch each other constantly, and it takes on a different meaning to the way they had been on those long hot days in the Barrens. All of them can, secretly, see a life beyond the Losers. Derry and the fucking clown are a distant memory, these days, a year into their student lives. Eddie, for one, starts staying out and sleeping late. Beverly expresses quiet concern to Stan over breakfast, tone hushed so they don’t wake him. It’s normal for Richie to sleep in past noon. It’s normal for Eddie to be up with the dawn. Lately it’s been the other way around, and they can’t work out why.

“Do you think he’s got a girlfriend?” Bev hisses through her morning cigarette, tapping the ash in an empty coffee cup, eyes glued on the doorway just in case.

“Eddie? Unlikely. He’s too focussed on his learning.” Stan doesn’t feel as invested in the Great Eddie Mystery. Leans back in his chair and picks the string off his banana, watching as Beverly blows smoke rings at the ceiling.

“It’d be  _ weird _ if he had a girlfriend.”

“Are you threatened by the thought of another girl joining us?” 

“No.” Her stare is withering, and Stan is duly ashamed of himself. “Actually it’d be nice to get away from all the testosterone.”

“Do  _ you  _ have any girlfriends?” Okay, that brings forward a wry smile. She taps her ash again. Stan watches the way her wrist flexes with the action. “I’m guessing there aren’t a lot of ladies when you’re taking vocational mechanics.”

“No, there is that. Maybe I actually  _ like  _ being surrounded by all you buff macho dudes.” Their laughter signifies that the Great Eddie Mystery has been forgotten, and they’re putting the breakfast things away when Richie slouches into the kitchen with bruises under his eyes.

“Hey Trashmouth. You look terrible.”

“Tactful as always, Beverly.” He looks at her over the top of his glasses and holds a hand out for the coffee pot. She makes a sympathetic face, a sympathetic noise, and hands it to him. Stan feels a stab of panic.

“Don’t—!” Ten seconds too late. Richie is already drinking right from the pot, long deep swallows, mouth curled in a smile against the glass, one eyebrow raised as he watches Stan watch him. His sigh of satisfaction is loud and exaggerated and Stan resists the urge to reach out and throttle him while he smacks his lips together.

“What? I’ll wash it. No fear of catching my germs, Stanley-so-Manly.”

“Shut up. Like hell you will. You’ll  _ rinse _ it and tomorrow morning all of us will be unsuspecting of the fact that we’re drinking coffee out of a pot which has touched your garbage mouth.”

“It’s pronounced  _ Trashmouth _ and I’d thank you to respect the family name.” But he hands the pot back to Beverly, who washes it properly. “Thanks doll face, you’re an angel, I’d die without you.” He pulls his robe tighter around himself and reknots it, scrubs a hand through his hair and yawns. “Eds up yet?” Stan and Beverly exchange a glance. Had any of them even heard him come in last night?

“Not yet.” Stan is doing the drying, putting plates away and wiping down the counter. He enjoys his early mornings just him and Beverly. They both appreciate neatness; him because it’s like being at home, her because it’s anything but like being at home. Richie doesn’t say anything, hands deep in the pockets of his robe and toes curling in his slippers. It’s nothing to worry about, he tells himself, Eds is just studying into the wee hours and then catching up on his sleep when he’s home. That’s all. And it works, it comforts him enough to unspool jealous tension from his shoulders and unclench his hidden fists.

“Well, I think this means he’s in for a patented Tozier wake up call.” His grin is devilish and he’s gone from the kitchen before either of them can stop him. Beverly sighs, empties the water from the sink, and meets Stan’s eye.

“Three, two, one…?”

“ _ Richie! _ ” Eddie’s shriek wakes the rest of the house. Within the hour they are all showered and more or less awake, sprawled over the sofas and armchairs in the living room, Eddie pointedly Not Talking to Richie. Richie who looks quietly pleased with himself. Richie who noticed the hickeys on his neck and is still telling himself that there’s a reasonable - non sexy - explanation. He ignores that hot venomous coil in his stomach and the base of his skull which makes him imagine who could have left those marks on his beautiful boy.

So they don’t talk about it. Eddie doesn’t cover them up, and they’re fading within a week, and Richie would passionately deny thinking about pressing his fingers to them to anyone who asked. No one asks. Instead they busy themselves with Halloween, buying the cheapest and tackiest and least scary decorations for the house, carving pumpkins together at the kitchen table with endless bottles of wine. No one mentions to Eddie that he’s starting to look a little thin, a little worn out, that they can smell night old vodka on him in the mornings. No one asks him where he goes at night, because even Richie has to accept that vodka and studying don’t go hand in hand. They live their lives less tangled, now. They can all feel it - the slow drift of continents evolving away from each other even if the love is still there.

Halloween makes way for Thanksgiving makes way for Christmas. Eddie and Beverly are the only ones not going home, even though Stan doesn’t observe what he calls “a filthy pagan holiday” while dressed in a Santa hat and helping them string tinsel on a threadbare lopsided tree. Richie doesn’t ask why Eddie isn’t coming. He suspects he will have to avoid Sonia at all costs once he’s back home, but that’s worth it. It’s worth it to see Eddie content and unworried, his hands dexterous as he corrects branches and makes sure of their trees' security. He’s grateful, sometimes, that he’d decided to take an elective poetry class.  _ nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands  _ he thinks to himself, his belly full of gingerbread and warm cider. He’s not sure if he wants to go home himself but he loves his parents. He misses them. Maybe he even misses Derry, a little, now that the clown is a distant memory that only wakes him sweating and panting occasionally.

He is going to miss Eddie most of all.


	2. you wore me out like an old winter coat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from call me a dog by temple of the dog.   
> huge thank yous and consensual sloppy kisses to everyone who took the time to read and comment on chapter one. i'm sorry it took so long for chapter two. i got distracted by @liminalweirdo.

“If you tell the others about this…” Eddie is pale and his hands are shaking; Beverly can practically hear his nerves jangling against one another. Which means that this is something serious, not to be joked about, so Beverly crosses her heart with a finger like she’s thirteen again. Eddie’s smile is like the first break of dawn, brown eyes sparkling as he takes her hand and sprints upstairs with her. They spend an hour dressing her up - it’s only been in the last two years that she’s started wearing heels, for Christ’s sake, but even she has to admit that she looks good when she catches herself in the mirror.

“Does this have something to do with where you’ve been disappearing to, Eds?” She is smoking, always smoking, as she leans against Eddie’s bedroom doorframe and watches him. Tight jeans, tight t shirt, and maybe yeah she can see why Richie is almost obsessed with him. Looking around his room makes her feel safe. It’s organised, only barely hinting at chaos (a rumpled pillow, a book sticking out from under the bed, a silk scarf draped over a lamp to dim the light), it suits him and seeing it now makes her understand why he often keeps his door locked now. In case of invading Richie’s.

“Mm.” He nods, his back to her while he looks himself over, the glance towards her nervous and furtive as he opens the door to his wardrobe and gets a box off of the shelf inside. “The guys—. I love them and all, Bev, but—.” She finds herself watching his hands again, those fingers still trembling. “They won’t—. I mean, this is the nineties, you’d think people would—. But—.”

“Eddie.” Beverly keeps her voice low, stubs her cigarette in an ashtray on his bookcase, and goes to him. Puts her own, steady and pale and cold, hands over his. “It’s alright.” She knows, already. She’s known for years, she supposes.

“Is it?” Together, because he needs this support, they prise the lid off the box. Beverly doesn’t acknowledge the fact that Eddie pointedly looks away. The makeup nestled within is sparse - just what she would expect from Eddie - and she smiles. Kindly, not cruelly, sitting him down on the end of the bed and crouching in front of him.

“It’s alright.” She repeats, one hand on the forearm that he’d broken a million years ago, palm over where the V in lovers had been marked. Because she loves him, and if he trusts her with this she knows he’ll trust her with anything.

“I’m sorry.” He’s crying before she can stop it, chest stuttering under his clothes, and all she can do is wrap her arms around him and whisper comfort into his hair. “I’m so sorry.”

“What for? I like boys, too, they’re great.” It prompts a wet giggle from him, his eyelashes damp against her collarbone.

“I stole your makeup.”

“I’m not missing it.” But she makes a mental note to buy him some of his own for Christmas. She has a week, still, and they have two before the boys are due back. Plenty of time to reassure Eddie. 

“It’s just—. It’s easier to—. Fit in, you know? It’s not—. I don’t—.”

“It doesn’t make you less of a man if you like to wear eyeliner in a club, Eds.” Beverly crouches before him again, runs her thumbs under his eyes to catch his tears. “And being afraid, and crying, is one of the manliest things you can do.” She’s still smiling, just holding his face to make sure he looks at her. “This is bravery Eds. I’m glad you told me.”

“Except I didn’t, not really. You knew already.”

“Yes, well, I’m all-seeing. I am God.” They laugh, together, and it feels good. Eddie feels good. The shame lifted from him, if only for a little while. Someone knows. Someone he loves knows and still loves him right back. Beverly is so gentle as she pulls the kohl under his eyes, as she makes him look towards the ceiling so that she can apply a coat of mascara, as she helps him decide between a leather jacket or a soft cardigan. 

*

The club is so dark that Beverly isn’t sure Eddie really needed the eyeliner. No one is going to see. He still looks cute in his cardigan, white sneakers glowing under the black lights, cocktails staining his lips and tongue a variety of colours. She can understand him feeling more comfortable here. The way his body goes languid and loose while he dances, hair slowly falling out of the carefully (unfashionable, but sweet) gelled style he always, always had.

Dregs of the old Eddie rising to the surface even now.

For herself, it’s quite nice to be  _ left alone  _ in a bar. She doesn’t see herself as the prettiest girl at the ball, but apparently something about being surrounded by a friendship group consisting only of men makes her seem like fair game. This is nicer. She can drink and smoke and dance with Eddie and no one tries to touch her ass. Which is probably a good thing. Eddie might be small and slight but Beverly has had the displeasure of seeing him angry, really angry, frame shaking with rage. She’s seen his knuckles fly through the air to leave bruises during fistfights. She’s patched Bill and Richie up enough from what his hands can do to know that with his stature comes a deep burning desire to never be seen as ‘less than’. Which is why she won’t tell her other boys about this. She thinks that she wouldn’t betray him like that regardless of how she felt about him. Hopes that she wouldn’t, anyway. Seeing Eddie this free, this happy, how could she take that away?

When they walk home it’s together, wobbling and drunk, her hand slotted easily into the crook of his elbow as he sings - not something they’d heard from the club, but Alanis Morrisette or Ani DiFranco, maybe. Something light and throaty and intense through sticky vodka-cranberry lips. When they kiss goodnight it’s without a hint of sexual desire, and although Eddie tastes like fruit and alcohol he tastes mostly of summer. Endless Derry summer, quarry water and Clubhouse air. He gives Beverly a set of his pyjamas, and they fall asleep tangled together in his bed.

Beverly doesn’t think she could ask for a better friend. Someone who allows her softness, her emotions, who she doesn’t have to be cool around. Because Eddie isn’t cool, either, and has no interest in being. He’s scrappy and he swears like a sailor and his wit is quicker than any of theirs and she loves him so fiercely that she understands, in stages and then all at once, why the Losers had come together. It’s more than friendships, threads stretching between them elastic and trembling with different wants and needs and things that imply future relationships and love.

Eddie buys her a journal for Christmas, a set of nail polishes, an air freshener for her truck and when she opens her card from him inside is fifty dollars. It’s too much, and she says as such, and Eddie just smiles at her and leans over to kiss her cheek.

“I love you, Bev.” And she loves him too, so she tells him. “It’s for next summer. If you put that in a savings account with a high interest rate, and you maybe put your tips in there as well, by the time schools out you’ll have enough for that road trip you’re always talking about.”

And Beverly doesn’t know if she’s  _ always  _ talking about it but it’s nice. It’s nice that Eddie remembered her bringing it up. So she hugs him in the fairy lights, tight as she can when he’s built like a sparrow, presses her face into his neck and smells—.

“Are you wearing Richie’s cologne?”

“I ran out.” And she pretends to believe that. Huffs a laugh against his shoulder and squeezes him.

“You smell like all you do is smoke weed, read Bukowski and harass the dance students.”

“Shut  _ up. _ ” But Eddie is laughing, untangling himself, looking up at the Christmas tree and sighing. “Do you miss him?”

“Richie? Fuck no, I like being able to take a piss without him trying to get in the bathroom.”

“No. Ben.”

“Why would I miss Ben in particular?” She feels the way her face goes pink, kneels, starts gathering wrapping paper to put in the trash. She feels Eddie’s gaze, bloodstone dark and intense, before she meets it with her own.

“He’s loved you since we were thirteen, you know.” And she finds that she does, in a way. It’s not this huge realisation, but she… well, it’s like finding her favourite sweater in a place she wasn’t really expecting it. An  _ oh. There you are. There you’ve always been. _ And she makes a resolution before New Years that this will be the season she kisses him. She will do it in January so that he understands her embers.

*

They order Chinese for dinner because neither of them had the foresight to get in groceries, especially not turkey and all the trimmings, and they get drunk on white wine and share a joint (Beverly giggling as she raids Richie’s stash, pressing her fingers to her lips and then Eddies when he starts to laugh too) on the porch, wrapped up in their pyjamas and a scratchy picnic blanket and Bev thinks — god, wouldn’t it be lovely if this could be the rest of their lives? All of them together? Wouldn’t that just be the grandest adventure of all? She remembers, a little, telling Ben that she had wanted to run towards something. A long, long time ago. Maybe this is it. Not running towards or away but  _ with _ . Hand in hand and wild and free.

She tries, and fails, to teach Eddie how to blow smoke rings. Eddie tries, and fails, to point out constellations to her (the city is maybe too light-polluted. Eddie can sort of make out Orion's Belt but not a lot else), and for a while they just sit in the cold and watch it start to snow. Watch children run up and down the street with their parents, new bikes, dollar skates and Christmas carols and… it’s home. They wave and shout seasons greetings to their neighbours, not bothering to put the joint out (because, unlike Derry, two pothead kids minding their own business has never been a cause for alarm), only getting up for another bottle of wine. And then another. 

“Is it… obvious?” Eddie says to his feet at almost midnight, face pale orange from the streetlamps, snowflakes dusting his hair and eyelashes and Beverly smiles. Thinks /gingerbread man/ and gets an arm around him properly so he rests against her sternum.

“Is what obvious?” She laughs when he makes an indistinguishable noise which could be ‘itchy’, ‘bitching’ or… “that you’ve got a thing for the Trashmouth? Probably to everyone but him.”

“That’s embarrassing. We’re going to get flu if we sit out here much longer.”

“So you’ve said, Eddie, like three times - I don’t see you moving.” Embarrassing. Is it embarrassing? She’s not… sure. She doesn’t feel embarrassed when Stan smiles at Mike over history homework, or when they’re the only two left having to share a spoon because the rest of them are dirty. In the same way she doesn’t think it’s embarrassing when Bill falls asleep with his head trapped between the back of the couch and Richie’s ass when the latter gets caught up on the Sega console they’d all chipped in and bought him for his 18th (he’d nearly cried. Bev still has the Polaroid tacked to the back of her door). She doesn’t think it’s embarrassing when she and Eddie pile into the same armchair to read, or when Stan begs a piggyback ride from Ben on the way back from the grocery store. She thinks that maybe… love is just love, and it’s universal, and that’s what makes the stretch of the strings between them bearable. It doesn’t matter how they drift. They’re connected, one way or the other, by how hard and fierce their love is.

Eddie shifts against her. This isn’t embarrassing. This closeness. Why would adding deeper meanings to the simple comfort of touch be embarrassing? Beverly thinks back on the boys she's kissed at bars. The girls too. She's not embarrassed of them. Things just happen. That’s the way life goes; on and on and on, spinning away like a windmill or Catherine wheel, ebbing and flowing like laketide. But he sighs anyway, and maybe she understands. Love, itself, isn’t something to be humiliated by. The action of loving, that can be harder and more complex. But then, Eddie hasn’t seen the way that Richie looks at him. Looks  _ for  _ him in crowded rooms and empty streets. She brings a hand up to feel the curls at the base of his head, just where they touch the freckled skin on the back of his neck, drops a kiss to his scalp and sighs. 

“I’m already-- wheezy. And I catch colds like fucking-- Elvis caught underwear. Everyone already sees me as weak because I get so sick, and because I’m the fucking baby.” His voice isn’t exactly resentful, and Beverly knows that if it was it wouldn’t be towards them. Thinks about slapping Sonia Kaspbrak around her fat face, not for the first or last time. “Add ‘gay’ onto that and it’s a fucking smorgasbord of ‘lets fucking rib Eddie’.”

“That’s not what would happen, honey.” Soft, into equally soft hair. She inhales and grins against him. “Have you been stealing my shampoo again?”

“I told you. If you don’t want me to steal your hair products, don’t buy the ones that smell like watermelon-kiwi.”

“Duly noted, you little toiletry thief.”

“You won’t tell, will you?”

“Your secret’s safe with me. Cross my black little heart.” He finally relaxes. Reaches across to find her other hand and tangle their fingers together. “Merry Christmas, baby.”

*

“Come and greet me with kisses if you love me!” It’s six am when the rest of them crash through the door, on one of the nothing days between Christmas and New Years. Eddie had heard the little Beetle crunching and popping its way through the snow five minutes earlier. Not that he’d been waiting, or anything. Nothing like that.

“Whoever let you read Flowers in the Attic has a lot to answer for, Trashmouth.” He doesn’t look up from his own book - the Odyssey, just for fun this time - but laughs when Richie crosses the room to kick the bottom of his foot.

“Your mom gave it to me. I think she wanted to warn me about what I’d be in for if I kept hanging out with you.”

“Fuck you, she did not. Merry Christmas guys!” He shouts through the open front door, where Ben is lugging in multiple duffle bags, cheeks reddened and flecked with melt. “I see you’ve been designated packhorse once again.”

“With these muscles, Eddie my love? Of course he’s packhorse. We need a strong lad to do mens work, since it’s only women who live here.” Richie is a bundle of energy, a bundle of laughs, talking nonstop and practically pacing around the living room. Eddie closes his book and puts it to one side, arms folded, just watching him.

“Did you see Ma?”

“Yeah, sweetcheeks, climbed through her window every night and got her knickers round her ankles.” He veers into something English-accented, and Eddie suddenly (like he does a million times a day) changes his mind about the stupid fucking crush. Picks up his book and throws it at him.

“You did  _ not _ . You’re disgusting. Stan, back me up, Richie’s disgusting.”

“Having just sat in a car for several hours with him, yes, I can confirm he is disgusting.” Stan dusts snow out of his curls and picks up the book - it had overshot, hit the bannister, and lain face down on the floor for maybe five seconds, but Stan understands and values the sanctity of the written word. “He chews with his mouth open.”

“Hey, fuck  _ you,  _ you brought Skittles. They’re chewy.”

“And I will regret sharing them with you for the rest of my life, Richard.”

“Ohh, are we doing full names? Am I in trouble Stanley? Edward, I’m in  _ trouble _ .” Eddie has to laugh, It’s ridiculous, but the house isn’t the same without all of them under the same roof. Too quiet, like a morgue or a cemetery. Especially with the snow muffling any outside noises. 

“I guess that means you don’t get what Santa brought you. Hard luck.”

“Get outta town, more presents? You guys, I’m touched.” It takes all of ten minutes to get Beverly up, Ben sticking his head around her door and grinning toothily is enough for that; the promise of coffee and Eddie’s homemade waffles just sweetens the deal. Soon enough Eddie has gifts piled at his feet, handing out his own, coffee mugs and syrup littering the hardwood floor between seven bodies. His favourite, of course, is the clumsy doodled comic strip from Richie (it had been used as wrapping paper, but Eddie is meticulous at best and obsessive at worst, and he’s picked the tape from the edges and folded it carefully so it can fit in his wallet). Stan is laughing throatily, his long fingers wrapped around Bill’s wrist as he tries to shove chocolate at his face, and it’s  _ chaos  _ and it’s  _ wonderful _ and Eddie meets Beverly’s eyes as she unwraps her gift from Ben (pyjamas, just this side of intimate, long but silky and floral) and doesn’t blush when she winks.

Instead he clutches the mixtape Richie has made him in one fist, in the gap his crossed legs create, and grins at her. 

They listen to the tape later that night, all of them dragging their blankets and pillows into the living room, watching Mike string more fairylights around the darkest corners, Richie on his back on the floor half-slouched against the arm of the couch. Eddie above him, on the couch proper, breathing deeply and just… Listening. It’s not his usual stuff - he likes jazz, acoustics, bits and pieces of pop - but it screams Richie. Like the music reached into some secret little part of him and took him apart and rebuilt him into guitar strings and tinny drums. One of his hands is resting on top of Richie’s curls and he thinks - is it obvious? And then - well, obviously. It’s as obvious as Stan and Bill watching Mike put lights up like he’s putting the stars in the sky. It’s as obvious as Ben’s fingers catching Beverly’s when he hands her a cocoa (with extra marshmallows, no matter how much Eddie told her that they’d rot her teeth until she had none left. She’d blown a line of smoke at him and “what, and you think cigarettes and red wine and coffee won’t do that?” And that had been the end of that conversation), as obvious as waking up to Richie banging pots and pans right outside his bedroom when he’s hungover and regretting probably every single decision he’s ever made. 

Sometimes, Eddie thinks, hatred and love are very close together. Intertwined like his hand in Richie’s hair. Because he  _ loves  _ the way Richie picks on him, sometimes. Not when he’s cruel (and sometimes he is, and Eddie has to ‘beep beep’ him before there are true hurt feelings), but when he’s gentle and smiling and just prodding at things that sting. It’s more like poking at skin where you know a bruise will rise. Strangely painful, but irresistible, because you know it’ll heal.

It’s warmer and safer than Eddie’s ever felt, truthfully. When Richie opens up his ribcage and purposefully picks the subjects which are at once vulnerable and yet mean nothing - his mother, his asthma, his name, and  _ cute cute cute  _ \- because there’s thought behind it. It’s Richie taking his clay form and shaping it into something resilient, maybe. He heaves a huge, contented sigh along to Temple of the Dog (“no, seriously, guys, shut up and listen, this is Pearl Jam before they were Pearl Jam, and in my educated opinion it’s fucking better,” Richie had told them, cigarette between his lips, ash burning holes into his flannel) and curls onto his side to consider him.

He’s too long in every respect. There’s just something uncanny about him. All those limbs and all that torso and - he’s not pretty. Eddie knows that much. Not like the glittering ethereal boys in the bars he goes to; the boys he so desperately wants to be, because then maybe Richie would look at him and see more than  _ cute cute cute _ . The angles of him are too sharp and after months of living on whatever they can afford he’s starting to look both sharper and softer in places he maybe shouldn’t be, but… He’s Richie. He’s amazing and wonderful and funny in ways that Eddie could never imagine being. He’s unintentionally and intentionally gross; he chews with his mouth open (Stan was right) and can’t be trusted with soup or runny yolks because he always slops them down his chin when he thinks of something funny and laughs through his mouthful, but…

He’s also  _ Richie _ . Furrowed eyebrows bent over books with a well chewed pencil between his teeth, shaving cream behind his ear (which Bill always manages to wipe off before Eddie can manage to), hair pushed back and just the right side of greasy to make him look like he belongs in some grunge band somewhere, open collar showing just a little chest hair (and just a little chest acne, sometimes), ankles delicate when he props his long legs up on the coffee table and leans against Eddie, Sega controller in hand, shouting obscenities at Sonic. 

Eddie kind of hates Sonic on his behalf. Little blue bastard.


	3. your slightest look easily will unclose me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm going back and forth between grunge songs and somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond by e.e cummings.
> 
> and thank you again to everyone reading and commenting - i went like a month without updating and now i'm updating twice in a week. no, i don't understand myself either.

In the summer, the year before, even before any of them had decided that Portland was the way to go, Richie had picked up a guitar in Derry’s only antique shop. It had been a whim, maybe. Something to do with his hands so that he’d stop thinking about putting them on Eddie. Something to work his fingers with so that when he  _ did  _ touch Eddie it would be with skill and experience. And surprisingly, he’d fallen in love with it. With getting calloused thumbs and fingertips, with sitting in his room, photocopied chords and notes spread out over his bed, body curled around the hollow of the instrument and not letting himself feel guilty about spending thirty dollars which should have gone into their collected college fund underground. Maybe it appealed because he could make noise  _ while  _ learning, which was obviously a complete novelty. Richie prides himself on picking things up quickly, and the guitar hasn't been an exception - he worries, sometimes, even now that people forget that he’s  _ clever _ . He had no problems with his school work. He  _ has  _ no problems with the work he does in college. It’s always been his mouth that gets him in trouble, as soon as he opens it.

It’s just not something he can help. It wasn’t something he could help in Derry, either. If something’s funny then it’s funny and it demands to be said, and then that need to yak yak yak bubbles up in him and shakes his teeth and then, usually, there’s a scolding. And sometimes people - Eddie - throw things at him. But it’s not his  _ fault.  _ He doesn’t wish, anymore, that he could make them understand that. That it’s not  _ Richie  _ consciously providing them with good chucks, but a deep seated instinct. Instinct to hide, to shy away from true conversations, to avoid intimacy because… what if someone saw? What if someone looked into the most vulnerable parts of him and saw their initials carved on a kissing bridge, faded and mossy with time?

He puts that worry, that vulnerability, into the guitar. Collects stickers from magazines and bars and plasters them over the parts where the woods split, where he’d left a coffee cup balanced on her for maybe a little too long, where he’s knocked her neck in his haste to hide this particular hobby from his friends. It’s not that he thinks they’ll make fun, because they won’t, but it’s something that belongs to him and only him. For now. Until New Years, maybe. And that might not even happen. It’s just that the bar he works in is still looking for entertainment and, well…

In the same vein as having things just be  _ his _ , he's branched out from just having the Losers. After the guitar and endless hours practicing, muddling his way from the twelve bar blues up to Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith, from his fingers bleeding to being able to pick out Stairway to Heaven with relative ease; after they’d started college and got their jobs and settled in, there’d been a band. There  _ is _ a band. And the thought of performing, for some reason, makes him anxious in a way he doesn’t  _ get _ . He’s the Trashmouth. He has an answer for everything. He can shout down any hecklers with the best of them but.

But what if the Losers thought he was shit? Worse, what if Eddie thought he was shit? The fear of it makes him, occasionally, want to go Jimi Hendrix on the guitar. Smash it into kindling and set it alight.

For now, he’s just gotten home, and Eddie's fingers are in his hair, and he’s full of cocoa and his moms spicy sugar cookies. He’s not thinking about the guitar. He’s not thinking about anything much outside of the way Eddie is scratching his scalp and how it’s making his spine tremble. About how the movement of it makes his head feel like something cold is tingling over the skin even though his hands are warm. Beyond that, he’s thinking about the cigarette between his fingers, and how much his back will hurt if he falls asleep here, and how ridiculous the thought that he could sleep anywhere  _ else  _ right now is. His Christmas present from Eddie - a hand knitted blanket in hideous neon colours, totally perfect with its imperfections - is slung around him and he’s  _ warm _ and sleepy and comfortable with his music still playing softly in the background. Richie’s given up on making the rest of them listen. Maybe their chatter adds to the beauty of TOOL. Richie doesn’t know. He’s not the expert. He’s too easily distracted to put ten thousand hours into anything. Anything at all.

Except, maybe, the heat of Eddie's fingers brushing the back of his neck. He could spend ten thousand hours learning  _ exactly  _ how that feels.

It would be so easy, Richie thinks, to grab his wrist in his own hand. Bring it around and press his mouth to it. But then… that’s exactly the kind of vulnerability that frightens him. He’d take the Bad Thing that happened in Derry over exposing himself like that without a good one in his pocket to save him. There would be no way to laugh it off, because the way he feels about Eddie, sometimes, is no laughing matter. He’s the one that made them all come home early, already. He’s the one who couldn’t bear being away from the house and away— away from Eddie. Not after seeing the hickeys, months ago. All he could think, in his single bed in his parents house, listening to his sister on the phone, was ‘is he bringing them back home now we’re not there? Now it’s just Bev? Is he fucking them in his own bed? Are they women? Are they men? Does he make them coffee and grapefruit in the morning the same way he does for us? Does he tut and roll his eyes when they drown theirs in sugar the way he does with me?’ And he couldn’t stand that. Couldn’t turn that into a joke, either. But he’d thought it on an endless loop. Whenever he did anything. In the shower, ‘does he wash their hair for them?’, brushing his teeth, ‘does he have a toothbrush at their place?’, helping his dad peel potatoes, ‘do they cook together? Are they dating? Is Eddie dating someone? Is Eddie dating someone who isn’t me?’

And maybe it means something and maybe it doesn’t, that he’d thought that. That he’d counted off the miles like minutes and pissed Stan off on purpose on the journey home because he was thinking about… what if whoever Eddie was seeing was still there?

What if he’d spent Christmas with them, instead of Richie? 

It’s easier to deflect. The lack of lovebites on Eddie recently doesn’t mean he’s not getting them. It means he’s getting better at hiding them. And if that’s the case then they’ll be on his hips. On his thighs. On places he won’t let Richie touch. Which means that Richie doesn’t have a chance.

Which means that it doesn’t matter if his band performs at work for New Years and is a massive flop.

So Richie calls the next day and confirms. If they can’t find anyone else, Trashmouth vs. the Dumpster Fire will play. Yvonne, his manager, laughs at the name and sets him off. It  _ is  _ ridiculous, but they’d been high, so they’d thought it was hilarious.

“We’ll need you here at eight for sound check.”

“Yeah, no worries, we’ll be there.”

“We can’t pay you but we can give you and your friends,” she means the Losers, each of whom have come in to hang with Richie when he has the early shift, “a small tab to drink with.”

“No, that’s awesome, ‘Nons. Thanks.” He hadn’t expected to get anything. And a free beer is better than a kick in his (exaggerated, out of place, bunny rabbit, hideous geek punch-em-out) teeth.

“Eight o clock, Richie. Don’t let me down, okay?”

“Have I ever?”

“There’s a first time for everything, kid.” And when he hangs up, he feels good. He won’t have to obsess over who Eddie is kissing at midnight and how to make it so that it’s him. He won’t even be around him. Won’t have to see him all doe eyed and pretty in the fireworks. That’s good. That’s a good thing.

“Where’s the dumpster fire?” Yeah okay. Maybe he should have made sure the house was empty before he called. He spins to look up at Ben, halfway down the stairs, and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. 

“Nowhere, man. I— uh, well. That’s— um, that’s my band. It’s um— Trashmouth vs. The Dumpster Fire. It’s stupid.” Ben’s laugh is full and not unkind, leaning one hip against the bannister to peer over it at him.

“I didn’t know you were musical.”

“I’m not. Stanley’s the musical one. I just stand with the band and look irresistible. Get all the gals to throw their bras. That kind of thing.”

“Bullshit. If it were like that, you would have told us about it.” Richie hates that they can see right through him. All of them. The goddamn emotional traitors. “Are you playing?”

He could lie. Richie thinks, he could lie, but this is Ben, and maybe if it had been any of the others he might lie, but… Ben is kind. That’s his thing. Being unfailingly sweet.

“Yeah. At work. On New Years. So I assume you guys have plans, which is totally fine, like, go see the fireworks and freeze your asses off—,”

“No. I actually think your gig might be better. I’m picking Bev and Stan up from the diner at ten, do you think that’ll be early enough to see you?”

“Fuck, yeah. We won’t be starting until eleven or something. Yvonne likes to have a band onstage when the bell tolls. Announce the new year and all, you know?”

“So the first thing I hear in 1996 will be your voice? Sickening.” Oh. Ben is  _ so  _ uncool.

“We won’t be playing any of your pop shit, Hanscom. You might hate it.” But Richie already knows how to play Please Don’t Go Girl and will be using it as petty revenge against Ben eavesdropping. Watch Beverly put two and two together then, Haystack. But Ben just laughs, easy, forearms resting on top of the railing as he tilts his head at him.

“You think living with you for a year hasn’t given me everything I need to know about your music taste, Rich? You just like bands who shout.”

“You just don’t get Smashing Pumpkins. It’s okay, dude. Lots of people don’t understand fine art when they have tiny monkey brains.” Richie worries, as soon as the words are out of his mouth, that that’s too far. Too hurtful. But Ben just laughs his laugh and shakes his head.

So maybe it’s okay. Maybe his garbage runaway mouth isn’t as bad as he thinks it is.

*

“In a  _ band _ ?” Maybe it’s not as shocking as it seems, but Eddie is still struggling with the idea. Like something in his brain just can’t accept that. “Richie's in a band. Richie Tozier. He can’t even play any instruments.” The walk from the house to the bar isn’t long, but it’s snowing again, and Eddie's teeth are chattering over his words. Everyone else seems fine - winter coats and scarves and gloves, Ben with his arms around Beverly and Bill, boots kicking at the slush.

“He plays guitar.” Eddie swallows the noise he wants to make, stares up at Ben, then rounds on Stan.

“Did you know about this?!”

“Why does everyone assume I know everything? No, I didn’t. Eyes front, Kaspbrak, you’ll fall and split your head open.”

That, Eddie thinks, would be preferable to sitting in the dark watching Richies fingers. Listening to Richie sing. His heart is already going like the Dickens. It’s just not something he can cope with. He thinks about turning around, about going home and making up some excuse but… but Richie’s expecting them. All of them. And Eddie is capable of a lot of things but disappointing Richie isn’t one of them.

“ _ Bev _ .” Slightly imploring, forehead wrinkling, one hand in his pocket around his inhaler because he’s going to have a heart attack. He already can’t breathe. It’s just going to get worse and worse and worse and then everyone will know everyone will see and they’ll all laugh and—

Richie will laugh. If he knows. If he sees. Richie will laugh and use it against him when he’s feeling mean. Eddie can hear it now. The  _ well you’re the one who likes cock, Eds, I should have been trying it on with you instead of your mother hey? Is that where you learned to suck dick, dude? _

Eddie doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to be thinking those ugly things about Richie. Beverly smiles at him, pulls so that she can slot her arm through his and presses her mouth against his jaw.

“Breathe, Eddie. I’ve got you.” And god bless her, she does. She has him firm against her for the rest of the walk, training his lungs to match her own. She has him when they go into the bar - Yvonne waving from where she’s serving drinks and pointing to a reserved booth - and it’s fucking  _ packed _ and he can see Richie onstage tuning a guitar and that makes it real somehow. That this is a thing that Richie has kept from him. He tries not to feel hurt, because he thought they didn’t have secrets, and there are definitely secrets that Eddie has been keeping from all of them. He brings a hand up to press against where hickeys have healed and bites his bottom lip, completely misses the conversation in which they decide what to drink, and suddenly there’s a tray of shots in front of him. All different colours and textures - Eddie can see Slippery Nipples and Screaming Orgasms, and thinks  _ ah. Bev ordered these.  _ Because none of the other Losers have the self confidence. Apart from Richie. Who is onstage. 

Eddie takes a tequila shot.

*

The band are  _ good _ and Richie is a good frontman for them. He’s all wry grins and witty anecdotes and deep rumbling rocker voice in his throat and his chest and Eddie is drunk. He’s so drunk. Drunker than he should be for quarter past eleven when they’d gotten here an hour ago. Bev is watching him, thoughtfully, her eyes flickering between the stage (Loser by Beck. They’re all touched) and his slowly reddening face. He’s trying very hard to ignore her. Because if he looks at her then he’ll start laughing and never stop. His teeth taste like sour cherry and cream and he’s Not Looking at the shimmy of Richies hips. He’s Not Looking at the snarl of his mouth pressed against the microphone, or his dark eyelashes, or the flight of his fingers on guitar strings. He doesn’t want to look but he doesn’t know where else to put his gaze. He can feel his heart in his throat and it’s so fucking  _ hot. _ The image and the room, packed with bodies dancing and head banging and jumping, throwing balloons and streamers and. Eddie squeezes his thighs together under the table when Richie's eyes find his, just for a moment, and the hands working out the chords against the frets go wrong somehow. He watches him lean back from the mic stand, mouth ‘fuck’ to himself, and laugh and recover.

It’s an eclectic set, but it suits them. They go from Beck (Loser) to Garbage (Only Happy When It Rains) to Chris Isaak (Wicked Game) to George Michael (Freedom!) which is when Eddie is pulled to his feet by a man he vaguely recognises. Duncan someone, maybe? Someone decidedly Out, anyway. Someone he’s gone home with before, he thinks. And he’s happy to go, because fuck it, tequila and the shots that taste like aniseed have made him feel loose and happy and it’s only dancing, right? It’s only dancing. He waves a hand to the rest of the Losers (missing Stan and Beverly, who are probably getting more drinks, but are more than likely dancing because Stan  _ loves  _ George Michael. And Eddie’s the gay one), grins and goes. It’s nice. It’s nice to have someone to press against, maybe accidentally because there are so many people in here that they’re all dancing close. Like one of those Greek orgies Eddie’s read about. He doesn’t see the way Richie watches him, not exactly fucking up the progression but definitely clenching his teeth more than he should be for a pop cover, no matter how alternative his band is.

Which is stupid. Because Eddie doesn’t belong to him. Eddie doesn’t belong to anyone (but he still hates this dude; tightens his fingers around the wood and maybe strums harder than he needs to), whatever the hands on his hips say. Richie hates those hands. Big pink knuckled meathooks. And then it hits him, and he’s more surprised than he should be, but if Eddie’s doing this with a  _ guy  _ then he’s almost definitely gay. He feels some of his resolve slip away as he finishes the song and turns his face out to the crowd as they applaud and pretends that it doesn’t fucking gut him.

Now he’s imagining that this is where Eddie’s lovebites have come from. Is imagining some dorm somewhere with one of those  _ hams _ over his mouth to keep him quiet while teeth and lips that  _ don’t belong to him  _ suck bruises into his neck. He’s imagining the golden skin on Eddie’s thighs as he parts them and—

Richie clears his throat. Wipes his mouth and smiles feral to hide. Always hide. And Eddie doesn’t belong to him anyway. He doesn’t. He doesn’t.

Except Richie saw him first, Goddamnit, and that counts for something. He glances over at him, and the fluidity of his movements in accepting something vibrant green with straws, and pulls a face.

“Alright ladies and gents,” and Eddie  _ had  _ to find a dance partner now, of course, because the universe is not kind to the Trashmouth, “let's leave the pop behind and get a little dirty—.”

He’s not big on Trent Reznor, but he’d liked this song. Up until now. Because he’s singing  _ fuck you like an animal _ and he can see in the corner of his eyes where Eddies mouth has formed a red little ‘o’ of surprise and promise. Not for him. Doesn’t belong to him. Doesn’t stop his fingers trembling or his voice growling, but that’s still the fact of it. He can see the way Eddie's body is moving  _ not against him  _ and this is exactly why he doesn’t allow himself to be in the same room as him when he’s dancing, a rag in his hand, dusting the living room. Because it calls to mind old childhood fears. Except this time around he’s not running from a werewolf.

He’s the one with teeth and claws. And Eddie should be running but he never does, and Richie thinks again about how easy it would be—

But not with Hamfist McGee manhandling him the way he is. And if Eddie looked unhappy then he’d say something, probably, he’d shout and jump down from the stage and get between them and get his skinny ass handed to him and it wouldn’t make a difference anyway. But Eddie's face is flushed and his eyes are closed and he’s leaning his head back onto a shoulder broader than Richies and usually Richie would put this image away for later but it’s just making his hands itch. He’s beautiful.

He’s  _ beautiful _ and he should be doing that against Richie and the universe, man, the universe fucking sucks. And then Eddie’s gone and he panics, slightly, doesn’t fuck up but comes close on  _ I wanna feel you from the inside _ because what if what if and why can’t Eddie just fucking see—. Because Richie's obviously not his type. He likes big hands and big shoulders and fiddly frosted blonde hair, if the way he looks when Richie's eyes find him again is any indication.

Richie's only noticing now how  _ small  _ Eddie is. And through the hate for this motherfucker (who has him pinned against the back wall) he feels loathing for Sonia Kaspbrak too. Fat bitch. He swallows around the notes and watches hips press into Eddies, one hand flattening on the wall  _ above his fucking head  _ and okay, this was not the worst thing that he had imagined happening tonight but it’s the worst thing that could actually be happening. He wants to fucking die. He wants to go and rip this dude off of his boy and show him exactly what  _ animals  _ do to encroachers.

But he doesn’t. He just keeps playing like a fucking pussy. He doesn’t do a fucking thing about Captain Bonehead kissing his way down the column of Eddies neck - where the lovebites were - even though he wants to. He doesn’t stop the set and he doesn’t take his eyes off of them. 

He knows, okay? He knows what Eddie sounds like when he touches himself. It’s hard not to when their rooms are right next to each other. He doesn’t  _ mean  _ to listen, he doesn’t mean it like that, but he hears it anyway. And the face he’s making right now suggests that more of those noises are falling from his lips and Richie can’t stand it. He just can’t. His throat clenches around the last word and chokes it off and—

Eddie looks at him over this fucking brick shithouse of a mans shoulder and it’s like he’s been shot in the stomach.

His eyes are so dark Richie can see Orion’s Belt in them. Hazy with alcohol and proximity and his heart throbs almost as painfully as his dick in his jeans and  _ fuck _ , that’s awkward. It takes several deep breaths (that he plays off as song-related exertion and not sudden  _ want _ ) for him to reset his brain. He’s trying. Trying to remind himself that  _ Eddie doesn’t belong to him _ . You can’t just call fucking dibs on a person. And it’s nearly fucking midnight. And he hates himself. He hates thinking about Eddie's thighs and he hates thinking about his mouth and he hates thinking about being the cause of that lust-black look. He wipes his mouth again and grins, casts his eyes over the rest of the bar and thanks the universe for its small mercies; no one here can read his mind. Finds Beverly in the neon lights and swallows, because maybe one of them can, but she doesn’t look horrified. She looks amused. Maybe that’s worse, he doesn’t know. But he’d rather look at that than how small Eddie is, and think about how small he’d be in the cage of Richies arms.

*

It’s when they start playing Creep that Eddie's stomach starts to turn sour. Duncan is a decent kisser and yeah, months ago he’d enjoyed the muscles and the hands and the fingers and all the rest but tonight… he’d just wanted someone to dance with. And that want had evaporated pretty quickly when he A) realised how drunk he was and B) caught Richie's eyes over his shoulder. So Closer finishes with him squirming away and Creep starts with him feeling vaguely nauseous, finding his way back to the booth while the bar does a decent impression of being a ship thrown onto sharp rocks and sand bays and Eddie can’t remember exactly how many shots he’s had and he can hear the rawness in Richies voice as he sings about thinking that he’s  _ not special  _ and it hits Eddies throat wrong. 

He dry-heaves once before he gets back to them, the other Losers, Stans eye on his wristwatch counting down the minutes. Eddie thinks maybe he blacks out because it feels like the songs just started and then Richie is wailing  _ run, run, run, run _ and Eddie can see the veins on his neck exploding out of the skin and his stomach gives another lurch. Harder. And then there’s nothing between that and the end of the song and the entire bar counting down and he can’t see Richie anymore so who knows where he’s gone and  _ who is he going to kiss? _ The noise goes up to a deafening roar and he can see Beverly all fire and starlight, tipping kisses into the mouths of the boys Eddie knows she loves, bells ringing out and making his vision blur.

It’s too much. He’s too hot. And before she kisses him he kind of whimpers out her name and then they’re outside, all of them, and Eddie is hunched over in the snow with that sour cherry taste in his mouth again, apologising through bile to Stan, but he doesn’t remember why until he looks at him and sees. There’s a damp patch on Stan’s shirt, visceral and kind of purple-coloured and Eddie thinks  _ oh no. Sorry, Stan.  _ And says it again. Stan is blurry and fluorescent when he waves a hand at him. Where is Richie? Is Richie inside? They should go back inside. Richie will be worried.

“Hey, woah woah, sweetheart.” Beverly's arm catches him around the middle and then he starts to cry, and he doesn’t know why except that the world is spinning around him instead of the sun and if he were the sun he’d also be thinking about blowing himself up because this  _ sucks _ . He feels motion and tequila sick. Kind of snivels pathetically into her shoulder because it’s New Years and it’s midnight and he didn’t kiss  _ anyone _ . That’s pretty much where his memory of the night ends, which is probably a good thing, because Sober Eddie would never have allowed Ben and Mike to pick him bodily up from the ground to carry him home. 

Halfway down the street Bill looks back at the bar, rolls his eyes, then slips and slides through snowbanks to help them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come be pals on tumblr, same username as here!


	4. trust again to save my bones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from black cat by temple of the dog.

All in all, Richie tries not to think of himself as a jealous person. All in all, he knows he’s got it pretty good. He’s more or less  _ fine _ with who he is (mostly. Sometimes he wakes up breathless in the night remembering the way he’d tangled fingers with that kid in the arcade and the way it had felt like Henry Bowers had seen straight through him. And then he thinks, fuck you Bowers, you crazy piece of shit), he knows he’s lucky. His parents are great (especially when he compares them to Mrs. K, to Bev’s dad, to the way Bills parents had all but ignored him when Georgie died), his friend are better, he gets to spend all day studying filmmaking and literature and creative writing and then his evenings working in a bar which has never judged him for being a Trashmouth (and Yvonne doesn’t, frankly, have a leg to stand on in terms of judging him for his sexuality). He gets to play guitar and pound beer and kiss whoever he wants to fucking kiss so.

So what’s the problem, Trashmouth? What’s the fucking deal, man? Why does it make his fingers itch when he thinks about—. Thinks about the fact that he’s not kissing whoever he wants to kiss because he wants to kiss Eddie. He wants to kiss Eddie so badly he feels dehydrated with it. 

He helps everyone pack up from the party, helps wipe the bar down and doesn’t think about the fact that Eddie’s just… disappeared. That his friends have fucked off without even saying goodbye (his own fault, he realises, sulking out the back with a joint between his fingers and his head in his hands, shivering against the cold), that he’s going to have to walk home alone and that he wasn’t fucking brave enough to go to Eddie. To close his long pale fingers around his biceps like claws and swallow him whole at midnight. He’d let someone else do that. Someone Eddie has probably gone home with. Someone who is probably spreading him out, lovely and flushed and drunk, on a bed he doesn’t belong in. He belongs in Richie's bed. 

But he’s not jealous. He can’t be. 

Dudes don’t get jealous over their friends. Or their friends boyfriends or fuckbuddies or what the fuck ever. So he screws up that little fucking emotion and throws it somewhere in the pit of his stomach, the back of his brain where Bowers words and sewer drains live. It’s not  _ for him _ to get jealous over. Eddie is the cat who walked by himself, more and more these days. Fierce and independent and argumentative, flint like and sparking and warm, caring and sweet and confident and… gorgeous. So gorgeous. Richie scrubs at a particularly sticky part of the floor and pulls a face. Eddie is so gorgeous it makes him fucking  _ sick _ . Not because of Eddie but because of himself. The things he thinks, sometimes. The things he imagines when he  _ hears _ Eddie through the wall, when he’s stoned and half drunk and it’s just too tempting. Too tempting  _ not _ to slide his hand down his own stomach, between the elastic of his pyjama pants and his skin, get his palm around his dick and—

“If you scrub any harder you’re gonna snap the mop, kid.” Yvonne startles him out of it, smiles, white-blonde hair coming out of the moussed quiff and starting to flop down into her eyes. She looks exhausted. Richie feels that, too. The bone deep burn that promises a deep, deep sleep. “Get out of here. I can only pay you for so many hours.”

So he does. And he’s grateful for it. The freezing slap in the face which comes when he opens the door and hunkers down in the snow. 

Why, for the love of God, does it matter if Eddie’s gone home with someone else? He’s a grown fucking man and if Richie tried to deny that then he’d be no better than Sonia. He’d be no better than doctors and hospitals and pills and not letting Eddie do whatever the fuck he wants whenever the fuck he wants. But like the jokes and the smartassery this isn’t his fault either. It’s fucking not. It’s probably Eddie’s. He’s going to blame Eddie. He’s going to trudge through the slush and get his socks wet and think about how it’s almost definitely intentional on Eddie’s part. The sharp words, the soft affection, the bright smiles on pink shining lips that make Richie think of—

He’s being an asshole. Even if it is just in his mind he shouldn’t be thinking of things like that. How he thinks of the girls in the bar sometimes because it’s difficult to catch himself  _ before  _ he thinks about it. How they’re doing it on purpose, how there are bad men out there, men like Richie who might—

He’d hate it if anyone thought of his mother or Bev like that. And he’s always very contrite afterwards but…  _ Eddie.  _ He almost thinks he  _ wants _ him to be doing it on purpose. The things which make Richie's bones want to snap and rearrange into something unrecognisable. And that scares him, that he wants that. That he wants Eddie to want the darkness in him, that he wants to show him. That his thoughts of Eddie - now that he knows he  _ kisses fucking men  _ \- have turned to tar and poison. He doesn’t know what the fuck is wrong with him beyond the obvious. All he really knows is that he’s been thinking of Eddie in various states since he worked out exactly what he could do with his dick. What he could do with his mouth when it wasn’t boiling over like an unwatched pot. What he could do with his heart, Ed-die Ed-die Ed-die-ing against his lunatic ribs.

Beverly shushes him when he clatters through the front door, shaking flakes off of his coat and immediately bitching  _ everyone  _ out for abandoning him on New Years, what the fuck, had the show been that bad you guys? That he’s seen bigger tips in buskers hats and—

“— stop fucking telling me to ‘shhhh’, Ringwald, what the fuck?”

“ _ Eddie.” _ She hisses, and he feels his stomach drop out and go freezing cold. 

“He brought that fucking sentient piece of ground beef  _ here? _ ” Matching her tone, statue still, arms outstretched to hang his coat up and eyes huge behind his glasses. Maybe Eddie’s New Years resolution was to be more open with his sexuality. It makes Richie's teeth itch. Eddie is upstairs in his room with his legs spread and— and Bev is shaking her head.

“No, no, nothing like that,” but the look she gives him is a little reproachful. He can read her like a picture book.  _ Who Eddie sleeps with is no one's business but his. _ He has the good grace to flush guiltily, to calm down, to ignore the animal pacing within. “He had too much to drink.” He follows her hand, pointed fingers, to the lump on the sofa. The wild thing under his skin goes silent. As always, he regrets the cruel and ugly things he has thought while… while angry. 

It is heedless of the others, gathered around the kitchen table eating what looks like the worst pizza known to man, that he goes. Goes to look, to see, to reassure himself that Eddie is here. Under their roof. Decidedly  _ not  _ getting plowed. Richie isn’t drunk, but he would claim to be if anyone asked why, why, why he bent at the waist to tuck his nose in behind Eddie’s ear, inhale that bitter booze-puke scent (mixing with Eddie’s aftershave, his laundry detergent, his shower gel which are all clean smells, Richie doesn’t recognise it for what it is until much later), get his fingers through his hair to rub at the parts he  _ knows _ make Eddie purr. Except no one asks. None of them do. They just eat their pizza and barely acknowledge him. 

He has to bite his tongue to keep himself from cracking a joke, from screeching a war cry, from  _ look at me you fuckers, tell me I’m real, tell me I’m good. _ And it’s things like this that make him hate himself the  _ most _ . That he can think the things he thinks and regret them and try to forget that Derry made him as ugly as he is (because now he’s… well, he’s not handsome, but he’s not the scrawny punchable kid he had been before he left), that his stupid haywire electric power surge brain seeks other ways to get popped one on his chin. On his nose. Anything, anything, to switch off that dummy-voice always chittering away in some part of his mind.  _ Gottle o gear, gottle o gear, shut the fuck up. _ Give him the sweet sedation of black eyes and fist fights and broken glasses to stop the incessant whine, the noise which only muffles when he gets super high these days. Pressing his nose against the soft, soft skin where Eddie’s hairline ends and where beard stubble should start and never has, at least not in Richie's eyes, helps. At least, it stops whining. He gets the pads of his fingers over the base of his skull, his palm cradling the back, swipes over and over the back of his neck until Eddie is sighing in his sleep and baring that skin to him too.

Richie takes his fingers away before he clenches them. Digs nails in. Bites. Flexes his fingers - sore, suddenly, because he hadn’t noticed in the cold, from playing guitar - against his own thigh instead and straightens up to look through to the kitchen at the rest of his stupid fucking treacherous friends. Stan rips his eyes away to look at the ceiling, Ben and Bill fall back into their conversation about the… the fucking merits of… of something to do with lumbar and steel and Richie does not care about  _ that  _ at all. He doesn’t even care that Mike is holding Stan's hand under the table. He barely fucking notices. Zeroes in on Bev as he joins them, pulling chunks of pineapple off of a slice of pizza and moving them towards Mike.

“Tragic fucking Hawaiian.”

“You don’t get to be mad, you missed out on ordering because you were moping.”

“I was not fucking moping, Beverly, and you know how I feel about hot fucking pineapple.”

“I know, I know.” She blows smoke at him, and then at his slice (for flavour) as he brings it to his mouth. “I have to say, though, anchovy and sausage is not a better combination.”

“Fuck you.” Through a mouthful of cheese. They aren’t being loud, now. This isn’t the raucous bickering they usually do. Eddie is sleeping. That’s important. He’s come home safe and he’s sleeping where they can see him. Richie knows that Bill looks at Eddie and sees Georgie. Sees something young and delicate around those big Disney princess eyes. That’s why he trusts him. That’s why he trusts them  _ all _ .

He takes another, enormous bite and looks over at the sofa again. Scratches a hand under his chin and sticks it out thoughtfully.

“What happened to the human punching bag?”

“Nothing,” Stan shrugs, and his sweater has changed, and…

“Wait, isn’t that Bill’s hoodie?”

“Eddie threw up on mine.” But Richie would know that fucking flush anywhere. He knows that radioactive heat in Stans cheeks. He himself gets it when he looks to long in Eddie’s direction. And he wants to yip out a joke, get a laugh, embarrass Stan entirely but he’s thought enough cruel things tonight. His brain feels slicked over with muck. So he raises an eyebrow and picks at a pimple on his chest and goes back to looking at Eddie.

Eddie who let himself get felt up. Eddie who got so drunk he puked on Stan. Eddie who met his eyes and went Chernobyl facially speaking.

Huh.

*

The thing about Richie is that his impulse control is fucking  _ terrible.  _ He doesn’t even wait for the rest of them to go to bed. Leaves them chattering away in the kitchen in low voices while he shoves Eddie over on the couch and climbs on with him. Traps him against his body and the back, wonders briefly who got to undress and redress him, wraps both his arms around his chest and repositions them until he can rub his nose in against his ear once more. Like this he can like his knees up with Eddie’s, can hold him tight and close his eyes and just… pretend. Can lie tomorrow and say that he got in and just fucking crashed. That’s tomorrow. He’ll worry about that tomorrow. Right now he’s worried about pressing his mouth to all the parts of Eddie he sees and stops himself touching, the thin skin on the back of his neck, the scar folded into the cartilage of his ear from when he had chicken pox, the bump on the back of his head which is made out of hair starting to curl upwards. Eddie’s stomach is warm when he slips his hand under his shirt, the kind of warm that comes with sleep and Richie thinks  _ god I love you  _ and  _ I’m so sorry my thoughts are acidic _ and  _ I wish you’d wake up and love me back _ like a cacophony through the grinding of his usual thought process. Presses his face in tighter so that his lips form a matching shape to the vertebrae at the top of his spine and closes his eyes and ignores that sick smell because underneath that is Eddie, asleep, warm and musky. Everything he should be. Something vaguely sweet and candied-melon about it, something his father would scold him for biting into because cavities come from somewhere.

Richie would happily let his gums burst and his teeth fall out if it meant he could hold Eddie in the spaces of his mouth. He’d make room for him anywhere, if Eddie let him. He rubs his thumb over where Eddie is starting to fill out, starting to soften now that he’s getting good food. Real food. Chicken fried rice and prawn toast and crispy beef loaded with MSG, scrambled eggs made with too much butter, the tiramisu Mike makes once or twice a month which Richie has  _ caught _ Eddie having to wipe his mouth over. Up his side to feel where years of malnutrition still sit between the gaps in his ribs, yawning like train tracks, squeezes his eyes shut tighter and just holds onto him there. Not too hard but not soft either, because Eddie has made no signs of waking up but it’s always a possibility.

With his lips pressed to his back he whispers all the things he wants to say, because no one will hear him, because no one cares, and if they did he would call them all hypocrites and go back on his mental promise not to be cruel to Stan. He would. He would do that to defend the way he loves Eddie. He whispers  _ why didn’t you come and find me?  _ And  _ why couldn’t you have waited?  _ And  _ why didn’t you let me catch up? _ And  _ I love you I want you it should have been me it would be different with me  _ and  _ nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands  _ and then he has to stop himself. Because it’s not him. It wasn’t him tonight and tomorrow he’ll tell Eddie he just crashed onto the sofa when he got in and threaten everyone into silence. Somehow. He’ll figure that one out later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> join me on tumblr! same username as here.


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